


Quiet Moments

by We_Band_of_Buggered



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Canon except for Casey and Severide's former relationship, Everyone's kinda messed up by recent events, Hurt/Comfort, Season 5 Spoilers, Spoilers, set after 5x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 09:57:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8323489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Band_of_Buggered/pseuds/We_Band_of_Buggered
Summary: “Ever think things were easier before? When we were together?”
Casey and Severide’s relationship failed long ago, but they have remained close friends and confidants ever since. After everything that's happened recently, the two of them find a quiet moment together.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set after 5x02, and contains spoilers for 5x01 and 5x02.

 

The next shift was different. Everyone at 51 could feel it—that giant something that had shifted the air, that had turned them all into creatures more tender and easy to break. The firehouse itself was quieter, stiller, and everything felt on the cusp of shattering. Chief Boden had led a meeting at the beginning of the shift, everyone in the break room with their eyes on the tables before them, stealing glances at each other, nodding in response and solidarity to the chief. The ultimate message was one of support and understanding, that Jimmy Borelli still had a family at 51 and that if any of them required support of their own there would be counsellors on site for the duration of this shift and the next.

“I strongly urge you all,” the chief said, “to take advantage of this opportunity. Despite recent events, Jimmy Borelli is one of us. What you all saw last shift…what _we_ saw, was horrific. There is no shame in needing to talk that out with a professional. For the benefit of anyone who chooses not to do so here today, or next shift, you will all be given the necessary contact information for your future convenience. If you need help, people, please—ask for it. We’ve all seen what can happen when we don’t. Thank you.”

The shift itself was slow—only two calls by nightfall and neither of them particularly taxing. Nothing like the previous shift. Now it was after midnight. Brett and Mouch were sitting opposite each other in silence, the untouched manuscript of their new chapter between them on the table; Dawson was feigning sleep; Herrmann was lying in a bed, awake and haunted with his eyes on the ceiling. The others weren’t much different. Chief Boden was in his office, too distracted to complete the paperwork his pen had been poised above—on and off—for hours.

Kelly Severide daren’t even attempt sleep tonight. Instead he stood outside, something small beneath the endless blackness of the night sky, propped up against the truck with a lit cigar in his hand, letting it burn. It began as a pseudo toast to Jimmy, and then it hadn’t felt right to smoke it.

His mind felt like a violent place lately. His hands were still fresh from the struggle that had almost gotten him killed, the swipe that came as much from hatred as self-defence and could have easily been fatal. Every closing of his eyes brought blood flooding back to him—the awful gash in another man’s neck, the blood pouring recklessly out of it and onto the concrete, onto Stella’s hands, his hands, onto both of their clothes. And the desperate look in a dying man’s eyes. Any one of them could have been killed that night. Severide tried not to remember the quiet moment he had found somewhere amid that chaos, the moment in which he had wondered—for a split second only— _would it be better to let him die?_ And now it was a plague in his mind: what if he had been alone? What if Grant had attacked him solely? What if Stella was nowhere in sight and Grant was bleeding to death in an alley behind a bar? Would he have reacted as fast? Would he have called an ambulance himself if Herrmann hadn’t come to investigate?

Ultimately, what all of these thoughts came down to was this: Grant should, at the very least, be in jail.

Matthew Casey had tried and failed at sleep this shift. Alderman Deering had called him once more, and he had watched the phone on his office desk, shifting gently across its surface with each vibration, until at last the Alderman’s name disappeared from his screen and was replaced with _1 Missed Call._ Casey rubbed fatigue from his eyes, left his phone on the desk and slipped out of his office, wandering through the firehouse with no particular purpose in mind, until suddenly he found himself outside, desperate for the night’s cool air. Not too far from here, Jimmy Borelli was asleep—or was struggling to sleep, or was crying himself to sleep—in a hospital bed with half of his face mutilated, burned unrecognisable, a devastatingly physical representation of the pain he’d been carrying inside him since his brother’s death. Borelli was so young. In quiet moments, Casey remembered this, and his mind flashed back to two blond teenagers who lost their father and had their mother taken from them in one fell swoop. He thought back to the time after Hallie died. None of that had been easy. Grief never was, and while Borelli was undoubtedly a different kind of man than Casey, something in Casey ached for him all the same.

On top of all of that, if Casey was to survive his aldermanship with his integrity intact, it would likely result in Louie being ripped out of their family, a wary and innocent child torn away from the person who had worked so hard to be his mother, from the man who so enjoyed being like a father to him. Casey was thinking about the look in Jimmy’s eye—that pain, that terror—and the unshakeable determination in Dawson’s when she told him to do anything to keep Louie in their family. He let out a long, shaking breath and walked until he reached the front of the truck.

“Casey?” Severide’s voice came, and Casey startled at the sound of it, “Sorry.”

After the moment it took to compose himself, Casey shook his head and said, “It’s fine. I didn’t see you there. Can I join you?”

“Sure,” Severide’s voice was a ghost of itself, low and fragile. Casey nodded and stood by his side, leaning against the truck with him and looking out onto the Chicago street that unfolded before the firehouse. “Want a cigar?”

“No thanks,” Casey said, arms folded across his chest to guard himself against the chill, and he looked Severide up and down, frowned. Severide was staring at the ground before his feet, eyes distant and his expression heavy. “Are you okay?”

Severide’s eyes snapped to him.

“Of course,” he answered, and Casey could see the broken remnants of the smile he was trying to force, before at last he let it all collapse. His eyes fell with the façade, and his lips curled up in something humourless this time, a look that troubled Casey to his core. “No. Are you?”

“I will be,” Casey said, “These things take time. Did you talk to a counsellor today?” Severide scoffed at the notion, and Casey’s frown deepened. “Maybe you should, Severide.”

“Did you?” Severide’s eyes were back on Casey now, waiting keenly for his answer and somehow knowing it already, smirking. Casey looked down with a short burst of breath, a hollow sound that was the closest thing to a laugh he could manage right now.

“I plan to. Maybe next shift. Listen, if you need moral support….You know I’m here for you, right? If there’s anything I can do, in any situation…” the silence grew and thickened between them, the cigar still burning in Severide’s hand, Casey’s arms still folded tightly, until at last he added, “You’ll always be important to me, Kelly. I’m glad we decided to stay friends.”

“Me too, Matt,” Severide said, and then another silence blanketed the air around them. They each were thinking, at least partly, about the past—their attempt at a relationship that seemed ancient now, that had been obliterated into the past, less by time than by the sheer amount of things that had happened since the day they decided they were better suited as friends. In Darden they had lost one of their oldest friends; Casey had met Hallie, fallen for her, lost her; Severide had lost Shay. They had both faced countless battles since the days when they thought they could be together forever, had both had moments of great joy that could never be fully shared with the other the way they had once expected it all would. And now here they were as friends, Casey building a family with Dawson, Severide slowly falling for Stella and trying not to admit it to himself.

“Wanna talk?” Casey asked, “About Grant? About Stella? About Jimmy?” and it was a long stretch of seconds before Severide answered. He mulled the question over, considered it carefully as Casey watched him softly, until at last he started to nod and met Casey’s eye once more.

“Yeah,” he said, “Yeah, I think so. I think we should talk.”

“We should,” Casey agreed, and at last Severide dropped the cigar from his hand, extinguished it with his foot as Casey continued to watch him.  When that was done, Severide let his eyes shut, tilted his head back and took a long, deep breath.

“Ever think things were easier before?” he asked, “When we were together?”

Severide only opened his eyes again when Casey’s hand slipped gently into his. He met Casey’s eye once more, something comforting about the warmth of human contact, the softness of Casey’s skin, that same old feeling that Casey was something close to unshakeable, even in his more vulnerable moments. Casey squeezed his hand and Severide returned the gesture.

“You know we can never go back to that,” Casey said, “Don’t you?”

“I know,” Severide said, “It’s not like I want to. It’s just what I said. Sometimes I feel like those days were easier. You don’t?”

“I think they seem easier now,” Casey said, his words deliberate and careful, “because we know we could handle everything that was thrown at us back then. We don’t know if we can handle this week, or the future, but we know we’ve survived until now.”

“Yeah,” Severide nodded, “I guess that’s it.”

“Come on,” Casey said, “Let’s go inside and talk, okay?”

“Yeah,” Severide said, and the two of them walked back to the firehouse together, hand in hand until they reached the door—until the very last second.

 

 


End file.
